"The country does not appear to [just] be in a cyclical down-turn. ... The evidence ... points more to a long-lasting slow-down ... which has turned [New Zealand's economy] into one of worst performing in the world. ... [The reasons] remain unaccounted for. The 'experts' quoted in the mainstream media, who work for the Big Banks and NZX 50 firms, don't have a clue, though not the modesty to admit it. ...
"So let's look at three explanations for NZ's secular stagnation that the big media outlets refuse to blame.
"First, the vast number of New Zealanders who now 'work' from home. ... An article published in the National Bureau of Economic Research is being quoted world-wide which estimates falls in productivity of around 18% once a person works from home. ...This outbreak of collective laziness is more than able to explain why the country has stagnated. ...
"Second, many of the Board members and CEOs of our largest corporations are nothing short of useless. Many are accountants & lawyers who know little about the core business. ... The higher echelons of NZ corporates have descended into an inbred club of status-seeking social climbers who aren't the real deal. ...
"Third, our national energy has been increasingly sucked up by [endless] Treaty debates. ... spawning industries of academics, lawyers, politicians and media types who do nothing productive, other than argue with one another. ... It has emerged that property rights, the fundamental driver of economic growth, are thereby insecure in NZ, making it a terrible place to keep your money and invest. ...
"[I]t is [therefore] entirely plausible that [all of our economic stagnation is due to] the vast numbers of Kiwis who are now pretending to work from home, hiring and promotion policies not based on merit, ... along with endless going-nowhere Treaty debates which have consumed the energy of the country ..."~ Robert MacCulloch from his post 'Should NZ's secular stagnation be due to working-from-home, lack-of-meritocracy & endless Treaty debates, then we can forget economic growth.'
Monday, 10 February 2025
"So let's look at three explanations for NZ's secular stagnation that the big media outlets refuse to blame."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Plus the huge loss of productivity by major expenditure on pointless safety measures, way out of line with what happens in more sensible countries. And governments at all levels doing things they are not equipped to do in a professional manner. Plus significant sums spend on Maorification. The list goes on.
JeffW
This WFH thing simply isn't true. People who are useless at home are useless in the office and vise versa. All that the shift to WFH has done, is serve to highlight the sheer number of people who *were* doing nothing to begin with. I'm currently doing a contract for one of NZ's bigger companies. I have at least 3 layers of middle management above me, in the 3 months I've been there I've yet to see anything like tangible output.
According to Price ~13,000 people in NZ create some 98% of the productive output of the entire country. Think about that for a moment. Then ask yourself whether all the regulations, compliances, imposts, fees, taxes, legislation, mandates and so on and so forth encourage/enable them or hinder/disincentivise them.
@Craig - I disagree. There's a continuum. At one end you have good workers who are diligent and disclipined enough to be equally effective at home or in the office. At the other end you have those who are useless in either environment. In the middle you have the majority, those who aren't useless, but aren't real go-getters and who you can't trust to be disciplined enough to be as productive in their homes as they will in a structured office environment.
Hello Mark T
In the middle are the majority...... who are not productive.
The question each person has to ask is this one, "Am I of the 13,000 productive in New Zealand?" You must ask this of yourself. You must answer it honestly. If the answer is a no, then you are the problem or, at least, part of it. In that case the next question is, "Why am I not a productive person?" Find out reasons and then remedy the situation, remedy what it is about yourself that means you are not productive. The unproductive never do this and so they stay in a state of nonproductivity. Consequences loom.
Not following your logic Anon. In the free market/private sector your salary is generally proportional to the value/productivity you're delivering. If 98% were completely "non-productive" as you claim and delivering no value, then we'd have generally 98% unemployment in all but government jobs. I would earn in the top 2% and probably meet your criteria of "productive" after working hard and honing my craft over at 25-30 years, but I don't look down my nose at everyone else who haven't reached the same level, as you presumably do.
The majority are delivering some value, but often need to be driven and have some external discipline applied on them to reach their maximum productivity. Working from home generally degrades a managers ability to do that.
Hello again Mark T
Productivity isn't about how much an individual is remunerated. There are many people who are paid large amounts of money and yet they are not productive. This article we are posting comments under hints at this a little.
The top directors, partners, managers in many New Zealand businesses are examples of non-productive people. They "earn" a lot but they are unable to grasp the root issue of why their organisation's performance is (being polite here) "disappointing". This is because they do not know what productivity is. They are not productive themselves. They are burdensome.
Working hard and honing one's craft does not necessarily mean a person is productive. Productivity is not necessarily proportional to salary. Earning in the "top 2%" does not necessarily mean a person is productive.
Paraphrasing Brick Top. "It can get you into a lot of trouble presuming Errol, I shouldn't do so much of it."
Sure.
Post a Comment